


Burning the Midnight Oil

by AngeNoir



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Extremis, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Pre-Relationship, Teenage!Tony Stark, Young Adult!Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 08:48:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13714188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeNoir/pseuds/AngeNoir
Summary: Steve catches the young intern - the son of the head researcher of this military project - fiddling with the lab reports, and he realizes that this kid is trying to sabotage the program.Strangely... Steve doesn't have a problem with that.





	Burning the Midnight Oil

Steve took a step back and tilted his head, considering. “Huh,” he said out loud, mainly because he was hoping some other person was around or would notice the abnormal flickering in one of the rooms down the scientific hall.

 

But the rest of the recruits clomped away, still wobbly on their legs and getting used to their bodies. The XT-3M15 serum developed was the most successful batch yet, and Steve Rogers was only one of the many success the Empire was in the process of creating - all of which had had their recent injection this morning, and had bulked up accordingly, leading to unfamiliarity with height, muscles, and strength.

 

(Banner had accidentally crushed the handle of the door of the bathroom after the injections were complete, and then, when knocking on the door to get someone’s attention, had punched a hole in the wood.)

 

(Thankfully Steve’s reaction was not as severe.)

 

But it meant that the recruits were staggering down towards the barracks, while Steve stood there and narrowed his eyes at the soft - barely-even-there - flickering.

 

This was one of the most secure facilities in the world. There was little to no way for anyone to be here without having gone through numerous background checks. Everyone on the XT project had been checked, and double-checked, and triple-checked, and then  _ regularly _ had background checks run again to make sure their financials matched what their lifestyle was like, to make sure their financials matched their pay schedule, to make sure they weren’t going off base often to meet up with anyone.

 

Let alone the actual developers and researchers, who literally lived with the soldiers and could not leave until the testing was done  _ in its entirety. _

 

Curious, ignoring his fatigue, Steve made his way down the hallway. It wasn’t one of the actual hospital rooms, set up for the test subjects (humans,  _ Steve _ ) - it was one of the data rooms, where tests ran on beeping computers and the hum of electronics nearly drowned everything out. There was a young man hunched over a computer terminal, fingers tapping away, lines of coding scrolling across different parts of the screen, laid over different medical scans.

 

With his enhanced sight, Steve easily picked out the name of one of his fellow test subjects - a real jerk, Brock Rumlow - before the kid whipped around, the screen suddenly going dark and a glowing circlet pointed at Steve’s chest.

 

Turned around, Steve recognized the young intern that ghosted through the different medical rooms. He’d never had an exact answer given as to  _ why _ he was an intern, when he was clearly still a teenager and everyone else (excluding the test subjects) were, at their youngest, thirty-five years old. The closest thing approximating an answer was one he’d gotten from little Banner, the youngest of the test subjects and the shortest: the intern apparently was related to the head researcher and was here not only because he was learning the trade, but because his stabilization equation was what would make the final, last injection permanent in their bodies and lock the nanites to their molecular structure.

 

“I know you,” Steve said slowly. “Saw you around the medical rooms and the labs, right? You helped calm Banner down and talked to Bucky.”

 

It was very clear that the kid expected to be arrested immediately; his eyes darted back to the screen, then to Steve again. Swallowing hard, the intern tried to smile winningly, but it looked wrong with those desperate eyes, surrounded by bags, and the twitchy, nervous, coltish limbs of a kid who could barely be older than seventeen. “Yeah, yeah I did,” he said, voice nervous.

 

“What would you be doing in the lab so late at night?” Steve continued, eyes narrowed.

 

The kid licked his lips in agitation. “I - I was just double-checking numbers.”

 

“It looked like you were changing some of the lab outputs for the test subjects.”

 

Almost like a switch was flipped, the kid tried to square up his shoulders, puff up and look bigger than he was - which, considering how they were only two or three injections away from their final injection, and Steve had bulked up from a 120lb body to a 200lb body in nothing but solid muscle within the past two months, was ridiculous - and tried very hard to sound authoritative when he said, “Do you know who I am? My name is Tony Stark, the son of Howard Stark, and I have authorization to be working on these lab reports. I’m simply running simulations on various outcomes to be ready for tomorrow.”

 

“Nice try, kid, but you should have started out with that level of confidence, because I’m not believing it now,” Steve pointed out.

 

The kid slumped a little, shoulders bowing, and then he listlessly picked at the frayed hem of his shirt, thin fingers moving nervously against his thigh. After a few moments of silence, he said quietly, “Who are you going to report this to?”

 

There were a lot of answers to that; Steve could turn him in to the military police, or report him to the governing board. He could even turn him in to the head of the project, or even in to Howard Stark himself.

 

“Why are you, what, sabotaging the project? Messing with the reports?” Steve asked, stepping forward.

 

The kid - Tony - flinched a little, leaned back. Licking his lips again, he flashed his eyes sideways to the computer screen again and gnawed his lips. “Okay, what the hell,” Steve heard him mumble.

 

Turning back to Steve, he folded his arms and looked as stubborn as Steve ever saw someone, chin tilted up defiantly. “Alright, fine. Do you think this project is a good idea? Do you  _ really _ think so? Is the answer to the problems we have in the world what with the alien incursions and the threat of global extinction and the rampant starvation and food shortages - is the answer  _ this _ ? Superhumans who need more to eat than normal people, superhumans that can bounce bullets and bully their way into any fucking scenario they want, destabilize and dethrone and disrupt entire nations - is  _ this  _ the answer? I - I made that stabilization equation. It’s my fault. I saw the math and I was stupid and I balanced it out and now, hey, presto, my government gets to take over more hunks of land to treat more people badly, to let more poor starve, to strip the land down to its minimum? Our future is out there, is the moon and our solar system and  _ progression _ .”

 

The kid’s chest was heaving, eyes passionate and too damn soulful. After a few moments, he dropped his head, but his shoulders were still stiff, still stubborn, still tense. “I never wanted to make weapons. Not this. I wanted to make life better for people. You can’t honestly tell me you’re looking at Rumlow, or Blonsky, or Ross, or, fuck, or  _ Schmidt _ and tell me they will use this judiciously. That they won’t use this, this  _ power _ to fuck things up worse than they already are.”

 

And the thing was…

 

Steve didn’t disagree. Not at all.

 

But there wasn’t much they could do.

 

“We have days before our final injection. What can you do right now that will put a halt on it?” Steve asked realistically. “I’m not disagreeing, but there’s not much we can do here. Unless you can find all the copies, all the hard copies, find a way to make people forget what they’ve seen and learned…”

 

Tony hunched his shoulders again. “I have to  _ try _ . I’ve  _ been _ trying. But Dad… I can’t risk him paying attention to me.”

 

Steve had volunteered for this program, but he had been in the army before, and was more than a little good at strategy. Tilting his head, he offered, “If delaying it hasn’t been working, circumvent it. Make a flaw in the process, or a way to… to put the test subjects down permanently.”

 

“Test subjects?” Tony echoed, and something other than anger or fear or defiance crossed his face. It was more like confusion, and even suspicion. “You think of yourself as a test subject? Not as a, I dunno, a volunteer or something?”

 

With a crooked smile, Steve shrugged. “I didn’t have any grand ideas, coming here. And while I agree that we need a way to defend against the Sultanate’s cybernetically enhanced forces, I don’t like this. I never really have. So, yeah. We’re test subjects, and we’re not exactly great ones, as you pointed out. If this has a technological component, I’m sure you can introduce a virus or something into it. Can’t you?”

 

Watching hope, and something akin to predatory intent, dawn in Tony’s eyes was one of the most beautiful sights Steve ever saw, and his conscience - which had never really sat right, hearing the things the doctors muttered and whispered, seeing his fellow subjects - was finally at ease.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Delete (The Ghosts and Memories Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13750338) by [laireshi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi)




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